gory; those who find themselves in such family circumstances as are stated by the law of conscription are passed into the third. In determining these circumstances the legislator has conciliated the needs of the military defence of the state with the other interests of civil society and the principles of humanity. In this respect, of the laws of conscription of all the great states of Europe, the Italian is the most liberal. The former, in fact, extend the period of liability to military service to 25 years, and restrict the cases of exemption within. the narrowest limits.

Another feature of the Italian law is this: it allows all conscripts wishing to finish their studies to postpone military service till the age of 25, and grants clergymen the right to serve in the sanitary department.

The period of active service in the army is of 3 years for the first category men, if they are in the infantry, artillery, or engineer corps, and of 4 if they are in the cavalry. Sublieutenants must serve 5

years.

After 3 years spent with the colors, the great mass of the first category are sent home on unlimited furlough, remain ing, however, liable to service for 6 years, at the expiration of which they pass for a term of 4 years to the active militia, and then for 6 years to the local militia.

The second category are, in peace time, liable to service in one of the several arms during a period of 9 years in the permanent army, another of 4 years in the active militia, and a third one of 6 years in the local militia; but they are considered as on furlough, and only subjected to some months' military training. The furlough classes of the first cate

CAVALRY OFFICERS.

gory being sufficient to put the permanent army on the war footing, and the four classes of the active militia being sufficient to complete the cadres of the same militia, the second categories are really complementary troops serving to replace casualties in the field army.

The men of the third category are not in peace time called to service, except for a few weeks' training. All the third category classes concur with the six older classes of the first and the second categories to form the local militia. This is very numerous, and although its technical worth is of very little importance, except in that portion of it which is formed of first category men, it can, nevertheless, in case of protracted war, be used for garrison service and the maintenance of public peace, thereby affording means of resistance to the last extremity.

To estimate correctly the real worth of this enormous number of men it is necessary to give some facts showing the amount and kind of instruction received by them. Of the permanent army about 250,000 are kept under arms 3 years, and their instruction and military training extend over the whole of that period. About 384,000 are on furlough, but have also received 3 years' instruction. The remaining 170,000 belong to the second category; that is, they have received 2 months' instruction, and constitute the complementary troops. Therefore the army of the first line consists of only 634,000 men. These, however, can be constantly kept to their full total, even during a protracted war.

Of the 370,000 men of the active militia, about 200,000 have received 3 years' instruction, and these, formed into cadres commanded by officers mostly from the active army, constitute a very solid body, available for any war operation, the other 170,000 men from the complementary troops being soldiers of the second category, with only a few weeks' instruction. Lastly, about 300,000 of the local militia are of the first category, with the regular 3 years' training, and have about 170,000 second category men as complement. Italy, therefore, is able to oppose against her enemies fully 1,444,000 men, perfectly trained, armed, and equipped. This number can be maintained by 500,000 complementary troops.

The districts provide for the receiving, equipping, and forwarding of these complementary troops to their respective corps.

6,096 369,998 9,925 1,543,533 35,474 2.718.332

interesting than the sight of the grave and exact Piedmontese, the serious and good-natured Lombard, the sceptical and alert Ligurian. Next to them one might see the witty and talkative Venetian or Tuscan, and the jovial Emilian or Romagnese, and contrast them with the proud and ardent Sicilian, or the melancholy and pensive Sardinian. Then he might be struck with the intellectual acuteness of the lazy native of Campania Felice or of sunny Puglia standing by the side of a stalwart comrade from Calabria, the Abruzzi, or Lucania. But he would probably notice, above all others, the sons of Rome, of the Sabina, of the Marches, and of Umbria, in whom are still reflected the manly beauty of the Italic type, and the genuine Italic spirit, which still shines in the artistic cities of those provinces.

If the recruitment were made on the principle of localization, this diversity of types and characters would become apparent only through a comparison of entire regiments from the several regions; but being on a national basis, men from all parts of the kingdom are brought together, and their special characteristics are observable in each and every regiment.

The existence of such diversities may at first appear as tending to hinder or weaken that harmony and cohesion of all elements which is essential to the efficiency of an army. But thirty years' experience has proved that there exists unity in the army, and that through it the union of all the provinces has been

cemented. One and the same flag gathers under its folds willing and concordant men, whose hearts beat in unison in the intense love of their country, forever freed from foreign masters and the oppression of despotic rulers.

The national system of recruitment, discarding as it does the principle of localization, is altogether too expensive, complicated, and cumbersome, both in respect to the requirements of the peace and of the war establishment. On the other hand, it has had the inestimable advantage of doing away with one of the saddest legacies of ancient municipal rivalries, and more recent suspicious policies of petty rulers, namely, provincial diffidences, prejudices, and jealousies.

However, the remembrance of these and their evil effects on the political and military events of 1848-9 is still so vivid in the minds of many persons who witness ed those unfortunate events, and some of whom are now holding influential positions in the higher military spheres, that

it actually prevents a radical change in the existing system. Those persons believe that the recruitment on a national basis must be continued for the advantage of a more intimate social and political fusion of all the elements of the nation. On the other hand, a reform is advocated with equal zeal and vigor by men not less competent, honorable, or anxious for the public good. These maintain that the time for the adoption of the simpler, more natural, and less expensive system of localization has come; that the experience of thirty years, as well as the straits of the financial and economical situation of the country, unmistakably calls for it.

That victory will finally be with the latter can admit of no doubt; it is only a question of time. But when that time will come no one can say. In the mean time the Italian army remains what it has always been, the most vivid expression of reconstructed Italy, and the most elevating and effective school of national unification.

I.

broker, Mr. Harver was a man of humane and even amiable disposition. Excepting in a business way, he was very loath to cause pain to any of his fellow-creatures; and a like kindliness was manifested to a marked degree in his treatment of the lower orders of animals. Even when it came to that portion of the insect world in dealing with which mankind is accustomed to employ tongs and poisonous solutions and destructive powders, Mr. Harver still exhibited his natural goodness of heart by using these exterminating agents with a benevolent firmness. The obnoxious insect entities were bereft of life, but with that maximum of celerity which assured a minimum of pain. Had Mr. Harver been a tyrant-using the word in its older and better sense- he would have been first among tyrants to employ electricity in the execution of criminals; and if science had revealed any more genial means of getting rid of criminals-that is to say, any means quicker and less painful than electricity-he would have adopted it instantly. At times he regretted keenly that his station in life had not been that of a tyrant. Occupying such a position -aside from the obvious advantage that it would have given him in regard to manipulating the stock market by means of Edicts he could have made effective many improved theories of government which he had himself devised, or which he had read about in the course of his quite extensive study of the works of political economists. One of the reforms which he most earnestly longed to realize was the adoption of a system of rational philanthropy, in accordance with which all malformed and constitutionally weakly persons--and of course all imbeciles, hopeless lunatics, and hereditary criminals would be eliminated from the physically and morally sound portion of humanity by the least painful and most expeditious method that could be employed. Being a person of this practically and resolutely benevolent sort, Mr. Harver's disposition was to offer to Thomas the choice, as it were, between bowls and bowstrings the very moment that Thomas,

VOL. LXXXV.-No. 507.-44

of Mrs. Harver- who was not a student of political economy, and who was devotedly attached to Thomas - he consented to hold the decree of death in abeyance for a season, and even permitted Mrs. Harver to consult an oculist. But when the oculist had certified to the impossibility of a cure, and when Thomas's blindness had so increased that he could not walk across the room without bumping into chairs and tables, even Mrs. Harver admitted that the kindest thing to do to him would be to give him release from his affliction in death. And then Mr. Harver, in his practically kind-hearted way, said that there should be no bungling about it; that he himself would take Thomas down cellar and give him an overdose of ether on a sponge.

Even

When Mrs. Harver held Thomas for the last time in her arms that fatal evening-the execution took place in the evening, because then Mr. Harver had ample time to attend to it-her feelings entirely overcame her. Thomas's disposition was most affectionate. On this painful occasion he turned tenderly toward her his poor blind eyes; he pushed his soft little paws alternately against her arm so vigorously as to set to tinkling the silver bell that he wore about his neck; and with all the strength that remained in his aged body he purred forth his love. The situation was heart-breaking. Mr. Harver, as he gently unclasped Mrs. Harver's arms from about Thomas, and gently enfolded him in his own, had such a lump in his throat that his words of attempted consolation were spoken with difficulty; and his emotion so overcame him that he was near to missing his footing and tumbling down the whole length of the cellar stairs. As for Mrs. Harver, when Thomas fairly was taken from her, she collapsed completely, and fell upon a sofa in an agony of tears. From the days of his very earliest kittenhood she had loved Thomas tenderly, and through all the fifteen years of their affectionate companionship her love for him steadily had increased. It was a most bitter blow that their parting had come at last, and in what seemed to be so cruel a way.